


your memories are loud

by perilousgard



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/M, even though he's a dork, i always get poetic when i write about mako
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/perilousgard/pseuds/perilousgard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Korra twists her head on the pillow so that her nose bumps against his. “They taught you how to steal and deceive and hurt people. You think that’s what brothers do?”</p><p>Mako collides headlong with his past as part of his new job as a cop.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your memories are loud

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in early 2013. (Almost everything I'm going to post here was originally posted to Tumblr.) Blame pulpofiction for everything.

He fumbles his way into the apartment in the mute light of early dawn, and everything's so still and silent and perfect that it's almost harsh against his senses. In his head, he can still hear gunshots, the whir of metal cables flying through the air, and loud sirens. The cool summer wind tearing at his uniform as he chased after three getaway cars on his motorbike. The terrifying shudder of his heart as one of the criminals' bullets nearly grazed his ear.

 

But inside his and Korra's apartment, it's quiet and cool, and it's like being touched by her healing water. The tension still hangs in his bones, but he feels better.

 

It always surprises him to find Korra awake early in the morning, but it's especially odd to see her up before the sun has even completely broken the horizon. But here she is, sitting in the middle of their bed in her underwear, eyes closed and back ramrod straight. She must be meditating, he thinks, which is a somewhat new practice for her - normally she's jittering her way through Tenzin's mandatory sessions, eager to get her blood pumping again. She could be a statue now, as cold and hard as the stone of her predecessor that overlooks the city.

 

When he steps in, it's like she senses his presence. Bright blue eyes peer at him in the dim light, and she smiles. "Good morning."

 

"Good morning," Mako says. "I don't think I've ever heard you say those words before."

 

She laughs softly, stretching like a cat, and climbs off the bed. "I couldn't sleep. Tenzin says this can help." His fingers graze her elbows as she moves into the space he opened up for her, reaching out for her even before she got up. She tilts her chin up to receive his kiss and even her lips feel cool against his, another soothing balm that dwindles the noisy memories in his head. A moment later, though, she pulls away with a small, displeased sound. "Beard's starting to come in." Her hands rasp against the hair growing along his jaw and chin.

 

"I guess I haven't shaved in a few days," he says, leaning unconsciously into her touch.

 

"Well, if you're coming back to bed with me, we should take care of that." Korra grabs him by the lapels and drags him to the bathroom like it's the most normal thing in the world to give your boyfriend a shave at 5 am. Mako's too tired to put up any resistance, and they see one another so rarely these days that he'll take whatever time he can get with her.

 

In the mirror, his face is pale and angular, eyes made sunken into his cheeks by the dark circles under them. The beard spreads across his jaw like tiny drops of ink, prominent against his light skin. He tilts his chin up slightly and runs his hand over it, feeling the way it scrapes against his fingers. He looks older. It's possibly the first time his physical appearance reflects the rapid rate at which he's been maturing since he was eight years old. People always tell him he looks so young.

 

"You don't like it?" he asks, glancing at her with a smile curling up the corners of his mouth.

 

"It doesn't work," Korra replies, matter-of-fact, as she hops up onto the sink in front of him. She rests her knees on either side of his hips, keeping him close, bare toes brushing the fabric of his pants. "You don't need to be hiding that chiseled jaw behind any hair."

 

He smirks. "You just don't like the way it feels when I kiss you."

 

"Nope." She pops the 'p', spreading sweet-smelling cream along the beard line. She lifts the razor after wetting it and it slides smoothly over his skin, the sound of it soft in his ears. He closes his eyes and lets his mind absorb the sound, staying in the moment. In this quiet, he feels like he could almost go to sleep just standing there. But Korra's voice breaks his stupor.

 

"You look like you've had a hard night." The razor makes a slow, meandering path along the underside of his chin. He shrugs a little, and she frowns. "Mako, I do listen to the radio."

 

He sets his jaw as a blob of white cream drips off onto the floor between them. "It was fine. Two of them got away, but we caught..."

 

"Shin," Korra finishes quietly. "That's his name, right?" Mako nods stiffly, and she reaches up to wipe some of the hair and cream away from his face. "Are you okay?"

 

"Fine," he replies, taking a deep breath through his nose. And he is, he's fine, really fine. He and Shin were never particularly close, even when they were working together as scrawny teenagers in the grimy underbelly of the city. Having Shin shoot a bullet right past his head had been something of a surprise, but he'd still missed. He never was much of a good shot.

 

"I know you and Bolin were..." Korra hesitates, not wanting to use the word 'friends'. "Acquainted with him," she says finally. "Bolin was over here earlier, when we were listening to the report."

 

Mako nods. "We used to work together." _Stay away from the part of town, you're more likely to get pickpocketed or worse on the other side of the railroad. Keep to this side, stay together, blend in with the crowd. Part of your job is going by unnoticed. And here, see those restaurants up there? The ones at the end of the street always have food in the garbage at the end of the night. Sometimes you can get almost a whole plate of noodles. And that's some of the best quality food Republic City has to offer!_ He sees Bolin in his mind, still short at twelve, struggling to keep up with the larger strides of the older boys.

 

“It wasn’t hard?” Korra asks. “You know, having to arrest him.”

 

It wasn’t hard fighting Shin, because they had been taught the same moves and his were all too easy to predict. It wasn’t even hard to clap the handcuffs around his wrists and keep eye contact while he told him his rights. It wasn’t hard to push him into the truck afterwards to let him be taken downtown. But there is still something that rankles, something that weighs him down and prevents the memories from sliding down into the dark, silent water of his head, something that forces them to float on the surface and swell together like a maelstrom.

 

_What this city must be coming to if fuckers like us are suddenly allowed to become cops, huh?_

Spoken with a token crooked grin and a tip of his hat. The animosity that had fired the gun at Mako’s head moments earlier had disappeared entirely.

 

The comment stung like a dragon-wasp and buried deep, splintering his skin, injecting the memories into his blood.

 

_Cold night, huh? Here, have a cig. No, it’s on me. Look, if you and your brother need a place to stay, I can hook you up. I know you think you’re alone out here, but you’re Triad now. We ain’t nothin’ if we don’t look after our own. You got a good memory? I’ll tell you where to go. Just tell ‘em I sent ya and they’ll let you kip in, as long as you don’t mind doing a little dirty work. It gets ya outta the cold, at least. Think about it, Mako – you keep him out on the street in weather like this much longer, he ain’t gonna last._

Mako shakes his head, and the memories become jumbled.

 

_Fuckers like us_

\-- _like family, we look after our own –_

Korra lifts a soft towel to his face, wiping away the rest of the water and cream, and he comes back to himself, allows her to draw him back into the present with the pull of her sea-blue eyes. He clears his throat, touching the newly softened line of his jaw for a moment as she watches him.

 

“Do you ever think,” he starts, “do you ever think that Beifong only let me become a cop because of you?”

 

She looks utterly perplexed. “What in the spirits’ name gave you that idea?”

 

“I’ve got a criminal record. It’s not the sort of thing that’s overlooked when it comes to other candidates, is it?”

 

“Sure, but did other candidates help this city get rid of Amon and the Equalists?” Korra asks, lifting her hands to his face. “You don’t think that might have been just a little redeeming?”

 

He shakes his head. “I hardly did anything, _you_ —“

 

“I wouldn’t have even had the strength to face him without you,” she interrupts, sliding off the sink and dropping the razor on the counter. “So don’t even try to tell me that you did nothing.”

 

They’re quiet as they walk to the bedroom and slide under the cool sheets, bodies automatically gravitating towards one another even though he can still feel the slight tension in Korra’s body, the way she slightly closes herself off to him when she’s annoyed. He presses his mouth against her shoulder, a quiet apology, and after a moment, she seems to accept.

 

“You passed those tests on your own, Mako. You passed the same ones as everyone else. Beifong thought you were good enough to give a second chance. I don’t think you should beat yourself up any more than you already do over your past.”

 

He nods a bit, turning her words over in his head, and after a moment mutters against her skin, “They used to tell us in the Triads that once you joined you could never go back. Men moved on, children grew up, but some part of them was always Triad. They were…like family, for Bolin and me. Without them, we might not have made it out there. Shin was a few years older than me, but he treated us like equals. Like brothers.”

 

Korra twists her head on the pillow so that her nose bumps against his. “They taught you how to steal and deceive and hurt people. You think that’s what brothers do?”

 

He frowns. “I…”

 

“What you did for Bolin –got him off the street, gave him hope for a better life, kept him fed and clothed—that’s what brothers do. Bolin’s your family, Mako. He’s all you’ve got.”

 

_Listen, kid, at the end of the day, it’s every man for himself, got it? Somethin’ goes wrong, we get busted by the cops, you have to look after yourself. Don’t expect anyone to stay behind and tell you what to do. You ain’t smart, you’ll get yourself killed. You wanna protect that little brother of yours, right? You gotta be smart. You listen to me, and you’ll be fine._

Mako lets out a breath, and with it he exhales the memory of Shin’s voice, coming to him from dirty alleyways and abandoned warehouses and junkyards. When he breathes in again, it’s the clean scent of Korra’s hair and the warmth of her body and the light that fills her eyes when he kisses her. As she pulls him over her on the bed, the flood calms, recedes, and washes away, leaving only the rich desert of her skin.


End file.
